We’ve also been busy with the Peace Studies 40th anniversary conference. We’re contributing two elements to this international conference: a display (A Concern for Peace) telling the story of the department and a paper about our wonderful collections of peace-related archives. 1-3 May 2014. If you aren’t going to the conference, you can find similar information by exploring our Objects!

This week, not one Object but thousands! Introducing our collection of peace campaign pamphlets, which will become visible to the public for the first time this summer …An incredible resource for researchers, they date from the First World War to the Iraq War and span the century and the world. Here’s a quick A-Z sampling of authors and topics, to give you a sense of what we can offer:

Arms trade, atomic power.Bunkers or bonkers? (fall-out shelters and civil defence).
Common Wealth, CND and conscientious objectors.Doctor Spock is worried … (about atmospheric nuclear tests)
Education for peace, in schools and universities.
Fellowship of Reconciliation.
Gandhi’s ideas on nonviolence and Indian society.
Housmans Bookshop published many of the pamphlets.International Voluntary Service.
J.B. Priestley.
Kingsley-Hall, Stephen.
Lawyers against the Bomb – and other concerned professionals.
Marches – songs for.
Nuclear-free Zones and other Council initiatives.
Oliver Postgate.Peace Pledge Union.
Quakers and Quaker groups.
Radiation.
Scientists Against Nuclear Arms (SANA).
Thompson, E.P.
University of Bradford Peace Studies.
Vietnam War – especially draft resistance.
War Resisters International and many women’s groups and campaigns, from WILPF to Greenham.
X, an unknown author, who wrote a First World War pamphlet about the role of the Church in war.
Yorkshire CND and other regional groups such as the Northern Friends Peace Board.
Zilliacus, Konni (and many other politicians)

The pamphlets are important historical sources because of their timeliness, their immediacy, the strong views of their writers and creators. It seems that for much of the 20th century many people’s natural response to an issue that mattered (not just pacifist concerns) was to write a pamphlet. Pamphlets were cheap and quick to produce and to disseminate via sympathetic bookshops, meetings, marches etc.

Pamphlets can be elusive in libraries because of the qualities that made them so useful for quick communication. They can be hard to collect, to store and to manage. Ours came via the networks created by Commonweal Library: donated by individual activists, or found in Commonweal archives, notably the immense subject files gathered by Peace News.

Alongside their interest for historical research and as inspiration for modern campaigners, the pamphlets often have great visual appeal, as this mini gallery shows: vivid graphic designs and powerful imagery. Many were created by well-known artists and designers.

This summer we are cataloguing the pamphlets, opening up the names, places, ideas and campaigns to new audiences. We’re careful to include provenance and details of illustrations as well as information about authors and publishers. Thanks to my colleague Martin Levy and our graduate trainee Katie Mann for their fantastic work so far. The first batch of cataloguing will be online later this summer.

If you’re interested in 20th century pamphlets, significant collections which overlap with ours can be found at the LSE and the Bishopsgate Institute, not to mention the British Library! The latter page includes a link to a British Library case study by Tom Hulme, a great introduction to BL’s collections and to the value and pitfalls of using pamphlets in historical research.

Postscript – a note on definition. We are defining a pamphlet as a”short piece of polemical writing, printed in the form of a booklet and aimed at a large public” (from Orwell’s 1948 introduction to British Pamphleteers).However, this collection also offers us a suitable way to manage items which are pamphlet-shaped but which were written for slightly different purposes, as some of the examples above suggest – we are not being too prescriptive about this.

Yorkshire inspired J.B. Priestley’s best writing, but he also loved Arizona. This week we visit his writing hut at the Remuda Ranch in Wickenburg. The hut was less than 12 feet by 10, made of unpainted boards, and contained very little: a table with his typewriter, some books and tobacco things on shelves, and a small tin stove.

Priestley first saw Arizona in 1934, when he was sent by Ealing Studios to investigate the possibilities of a film for Gracie Fields. He fell in love with the landscape, “the clear bright winter mornings and the blaze of stars at midnight, the glittering desert floor with its promise of precious stones, the hillside of giant saguaros, the amethyst peaks and the red-gold fortresses of rock, and, not least, the air so pure, it seems magical”.

Priestley, his wife Jane and their children spent two winters at the Ranch during the late 1930s, the dry climate being better for Jane’s health. The family remembered these as times of fun and freedom, though Priestley himself continued to write, to work on US productions of his plays, and to give lectures.

Priestley wrote most memorably about Arizona in Midnight on the Desert (1937). In this, and its 1939 companion Rain upon Godshill, Priestley created a kind of descriptive autobiography, “packing reminiscence and discourse into a long reverie”. This format suited his ability to write engagingly about his own experiences, whether being comically grumpy about the inconveniences of travel, sharing profound emotions, or exploring ideas.

He gave the two narratives shape by beginning and ending “at a certain time in a definite place” and concentrating on the “events, opinions, thoughts” of the previous year or so. In Midnight Priestley is writing in London on a dark, wet Monday, but his mind is back in Arizona, one late night in the hut towards the end of his stay. He was having a clear-out, burning in the little stove an “accumulated litter of letters and odd papers” and chapters of writing that he felt had failed.

He reflects on this visit to the United States, and, with frequent returns to his sorting in the hut, tells us about his travels and his thoughts, sharing his views on the state of publishing, his experience of journalists in the USA, memories of his father Jonathan, Hollywood, giving lectures, American railways and much more. Above all, he ponders the great mysteries of human consciousness and of time. As we have already seen, he had just discovered and been thrilled by the possibilities of the writings of Dunne and Ouspensky and they were much on his mind that year.

The climax of the book is Priestley’s famous description of a visit to the Grand Canyon, a sight which astounded him no matter how many times he saw it. Priestley walks out of his overheated hotel in a snowstorm; the Canyon is hidden by mist. Then, suddenly the fog clears …

Priestley shares his sense of wonder and revelation as he looks at the Canyon – the changing weathers, the sheer scale, the colours. Above all he feels it gave a view of deep time, a fourth dimension to the landscape. Priestley realises that he dreamed of the Canyon long ago: maybe that dreaming self had made some Ouspenskian connection with the self now seeing the Canyon.

Midnight ends with Priestley finishing his work in the hut to go out into the cold starlit winter night. He is sorry to leave Arizona but he knows he can always recapture a place through his imagination, be in London in Arizona or Arizona in London: “I must try to put some of this in a book …”. Which he did!

Note on sources. The long quotation in the second paragraph is from an article, “Arizona Revisited” (archive ref PRI 5/7/7: we think it was published in Travel & Leisure Magazine 1974). Other quotations are from Midnight itself, Margin Released, and Instead of the Trees. The latter, published in 1977, was a very belated finale to the trilogy of descriptive autobiographies. The Priestley Companion includes several key pieces from Midnight, including the first part of The Grand Canyon, and is probably easier to get hold of through libraries.

This week’s Object has been requested by several colleagues: it’s J.B. Priestley’s shirt! The shirt, which is clean, is folded and wrapped in cellophane (or something similar) marked with the details of the laundry: The Mayfair Laundry, Strafford Road, London W3.

J.B. Priestley’s laundered shirt (archive ref. PRI 23/5).

“Realia” (objects, things, belongings of the creators of archives) can help shed light on aspects of their life or works and give an added dimension to those archives. Witness Priestley’s pipes, Jacquetta’s arrowhead or her OBE.

Such objects are also often instantly appealing in a way that documentary evidence may not be. Certainly we have found that the shirt is one of the most popular Objects in Special Collections, the one that many people remember from their visits, perhaps because it is so unexpected (unlike say letters, photographs or other standard archive materials).

Letterhead based on an engraving of Albany from 1800, detail from 1981 letter to the Priestleys acknowledging their departure (archive ref. 16/3).

The shirt is also a reminder of Priestley’s long connection with London, in particular with the fascinating Albany. This block of apartments (“Sets”), built in the 1770s, is an oasis in the centre of Piccadilly, and has been home to many writers, artists, politicians and other well-known people: Byron, Gladstone, Bruce Chatwin, Georgette Heyer and many more. It is also rich in literary connections, to Dickens, to The Importance of Being Earnest, and as the home of gentleman thief Raffles.

Albany nowadays, from the same direction as the 1800 engraving, above, from HerryLawford’s flickrstream (licence CC BY 2.0).

By the Second World War, Priestley and his wife Jane had made their home on the Isle of Wight. But Priestley needed a London base for his broadcasting and theatre work. This had been no. 3 The Grove, Highgate (in another literary link, once Coleridge’s house), but a land mine had made this uninhabitable. Tired of the disruption of moving around hotels and flats in London, Priestley rented flat B4 in Albany in 1943. Later he also took the flat across the landing, B3.

Detail from the Deed of Covenant for the seven year lease taken out by Priestley in 1943 (archive ref. PRI 16/3)

After the war the Priestleys returned to the countryside, to the Isle of Wight, first to Billingham Manor, then to Brook Hill, where JBP made his home with Jacquetta after their respective divorces. He and Jacquetta finally moved to Shakespeare country, Kissing Tree House in Warwickshire. However, the Albany flats continued to be important to the Priestleys for many years, for instance as a venue for committees and campaigns such as the Albany Trust and CND. Pressure of taxes and expenses meant B4 was given up in 1972 and eventually B3 in 1981.

I imagine the shirt’s laundry wrapping must be connected with JBP’s residence at Albany: the address is about seven miles away which doesn’t seem very convenient, but I expect that the firm collected laundry to do for the residents (this is borne out by a letter of 1975 from the management to residents which alludes to a laundry service). With archives, there are always more questions …

This week, some very special objects from the J.B. Priestley Archive: Priestley’s tobacco pipes! We have over seventy pipes, plus the paraphenalia needed for using them: tobacco tins and pouches, matchbooks, and a bowl for pipes Priestley was currently using.

A couple of J.B. Priestley’s pipes, plus a hollowed-out book used to hold them, on show at the Picturing Priestley exhibition, Ilkley, 2006

The pipes and paraphenalia are important because pipe smoking is crucial to understanding Priestley: as an individual, throughout his writing, and as part of his public image.

Smoking was one of Priestley’s greatest pleasures in life: “I don’t know anything in this lower world of taste and smell that has given me so much pleasure as tobacco” (Rain upon Godshill, 1939).

J.B. Priestley with pipe on seashore, circa 1928 (PRI 22/1/1)

More than that, though, he argued that, “Man, the creature who knows he must die, who has dreams larger than his destiny … needs an ally. (Woman I include here in Man). Mine has been tobacco. Even without it I have too often been impatient and intolerant. Without it I should have been insufferable. You may retort that I am insufferable anyhow, but, with a pipe nicely going, I do not believe you” (The Moments, 1966).

Naturally, pipes, tobacco and tobacconists crop up all the time in Priestley’s writings. In Delight, for instance, he wrote about the delight of trying new blends of tobacco and of “lying in a hot bath, smoking a pipe … lost in steam, the fumes of Latakia and the vaguest dreams …”. He often used pipesmoking in his fiction as an indicator of dreamy, good-humoured characters, think of Jess Oakroyd, Adam Stewart or Mr Smeeth …

However, managing a pipe is a complicated business, a hobby which requires care, thought and the aforesaid paraphenalia. Priestley often advised on these matters in his writings.

His pipes became an iconic part of Priestley the celebrity. Chosen Pipe Smoker of the Year 1979, Priestley is often seen with his pipes in portraits and other images. Here we see him with another famous pipesmoker and Yorkshireman, prime minister Harold Wilson.

Harold Wilson and J.B. Priestley, with their pipes, at the Opening of the J.B. Priestley Library, 1975 (UNI University of Bradford Archive).

Historian Mark Mason of the J.B. Priestley Society is working with us to clean and identify the pipes. Eventually we hope to have a full catalogue (there are, apparently, many interesting kinds in Priestley’s large collection) and to match them up with those appearing in photographs and in Priestley’s writings.

This week’s Object is An Experiment with Time by J.W. Dunne (1927), which had an extraordinary influence on J.B. Priestley’s work. Priestley reviewed Dunne’s book when it was published and later got to know him: “though we never became close friends we had some good talks”.

A mathematician and aeronautical engineer, Dunne developed his time theory “to account for the startling precognitive element in his dreams”. Priestley did not follow Dunne into the wilder reaches of his Serialism theory. But he felt that Dunne had much to say about the mysteries of “Life, Death and Time”, especially the crucial question of dreams.

Dreams were always important to Priestley (we have seen his interest in Jung): “I am one of the dreamers. My dreaming self is just as important as my waking self. I have had dreams that haunted me for days and days …”

Priestley often wrote about his own dreams in his essays and autobiographies: witness the Strange Outfitter in Apes and Angels (featuring horrible masks with movable mouths) or the Berkshire Beasts in Open House. Not to forget the powerful dream vision of the Birds and the White Flame in Rain upon Godshill. He sought out examples of powerful and predictive dreams from talking to others and even from a television appeal, on the BBC’s Monitor programme.

So why did Dunne’s ideas interest Priestley? Dunne proposed multiple selves and streams of time. As I understand it, Observer 1, our everyday self, lives in Time 1: linear chronological time. Observer 2 is another self operating in four dimensions (Time 2) who can see Observer 1’s future and past. Hence deja vu. Above all, Observer 2 comes to the fore when Observer 1 is asleep, hence precognitive dreams which seem to bring the future into the present. Observer 1 will die in Time 1, but Observer 2 is immortal and will continue to exist. Observer 2 might therefore revisit and improve the life led by Observer 1 …

Priestley also explored the works of other writers reflecting on time, such as Ouspensky’s New Model of the Universe, which features multiple dimensions of which the final one is circular – people live their lives over and over again. However, at certain points, they can choose a different path, turning the circle into a spiral, escaping the endless repetition and moving into a better or higher state.

Priestley exploited the dramatic or literary potential of these ideas to the full in the famous time plays and many other works. They make for wonderful plot devices, but go beyond that in evoking deep mystery or emotion.

Witness the end of An Inspector Calls: all seems to be back to normal after the shocking revelations elicited by the Inspector’s visit, but then the mysterious Inspector is at the door – again …

I Have Been Here Before brings together individuals in a Yorkshire pub – they have certainly been there before, but this time one of the characters makes an Ouspenskian choice, freeing them from the cycle of repeated lives.

In Time and the Conways, a happy family reunion in 1919 in the First Act is followed by the same characters, disillusioned, in Priestley’s present. In the Third Act we are back to 1919, but it is made poignant by our foreknowledge of what lies ahead.

Johnson over Jordan uses the idea of the “bardo” state from Tibetan beliefs. An Everyman character has to confront and review his life in a strange limbo immediately after his death. The scene at the Inn at the End of the World uses the Time 2 idea to moving and comforting effect: Johnson “touchingly re-encounters those forgotten or unrecognised aspects of his existence that had warmed and illuminated it”: his childhood books, photographs, pictures, the characters he knew and admired, the people he has loved …

At the end, Johnson steps into the unknown that so intrigued Priestley:

“JOHNSON, wearing his bowler hat and carrying his bag, slowly turns and walks towards that blue space and the shining constellations, and the curtain comes down and the play is done”.

The Society’s spring event explores the relatively unknown links between Priestley and another great British author. Clockwork Orange author Anthony Burgess liked J.B. Priestley’s Image Men so much he read it ten times! Dr Andrew Biswall, Director of the Burgess Foundation, explains, at this free event in Manchester on 16 March. Full details on the Society website or see our Facebook event.